The 46th annual 100 Mile Festival of the Arts was another success for the community.
Held over the course of the last two weeks at Martin Exeter Hall, the festival provided children and teenagers with a chance to have their musical and performance skills evaluated by adjudicators. Ginny-Lou Alexander, the festival’s president, said the event went fantastically.
“Everybody is wonderful if they get up on the stage. Whatever you do after that is wonderful,” Alexander observed. “This year we had a total of 120 entries, which includes some groups.”
Alexander said they started off the festival with a nice selection of pianists, followed by some stunning vocal performances, several school bands, instrumental soloists and dance. This year marked the first time the festival has offered dance as a competitive category with dozens of dancers from Raising the Barre Academy of Dance taking part.
One of Alexander’s favourite performances was the Parkins family who performed Matchmaker from Fiddler on the Roof who were so amazing they “blew her away.” She especially was impressed by how they incorporated their youngest member Elliesia Parkins, who uses a wheelchair, into the act describing it as beautiful.
Judging the festival this year was Alan Crane for piano, Gaye-Lynn Kern for vocal, Dennis Colpitts for instrumental and Joanne Gibson-Menzies for dance. After each performance the adjudicators provided students constructive feedback, complimenting them on what was good and giving them pointers on how to do better.
Everything culminated on Saturday, April 20 at Martin Exeter Hall with the Showcase Performance where they highlighted the past two weeks. Alexander said they gave out several awards to deserving performers including the following:
Instrumental
Johanna Springmann, Beginner Solo Award
Max Kalmakoff, Intermediate Solo Award
Peyton Kreschuk and Grace Yang, Ensemble Award
Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School Senior Woodwind Ensemble, Charles Cawdell Memorial Band Award
Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School Jazz Band, Jazz/Popular Music Award
Calvin Kreschuk for “Wooden Shoe Dance”, Adjudicator’s Award
Vocal
Jemma McLelland, Classic Repertoire Junior Award, Musical Theatre Junior Award and Sacred Award
Claire Kreschuk, Classic Repertoire Intermediate Award, Outstanding Vocal Achievement Award, Musical Theatre Intermediate Award and Heather Sherry Memorial Award
Maria Bonciu, Folk Song Award
Emily Thain, Popular Music Award and Country Award
Kelsey Fast, Concert Recital Award and Adjudicator’s Award
Parkins Family (Danielle, Calliegh, Johannah and Elliesia), Vocal Ensemble Award
Piano
Emma Yang, Baroque Intermediate/Senior Award
Joelle Waldner Kuyek, Romantic Intermediate/Senior Award, Outstanding Achievement Award and Twentieth Century Intermediate/Senior Award
Elliesia Parkins, Classic Repertoire Junior Award
Calliegh Parkins, Sonata Award
Grace Yang, Canadian Composer Award
Shia Briggs, Twentieth Century Junior Award
Johannah Parkins, Christian Music Award
Cece Yang and Grace Yang, Piano Ensemble Award
Edward Yang, Adjudicator’s Award
Isabelle Barrick, Adjudicator’s Award
Caroline Betuzzi, Adjudicator’s Award
Wyatt Geddert, Adjudicator’s Award
Dance
Mia Lum, Solo Contemporary Award
Sarah Tinney, Solo Contemporary Award
Performance Group 2/3, Junior Jazz Award
Performance Group 3, Group Contemporary Intermediate Award
In addition to awards, several 100 Mile House performers were recommended by the adjudicators to attend the Provincial Festival as competitors. This included Max Kalmakoff, Peyton Kreschuk, Claire Kreschuk, Jemma McLelland while Calliegh Parkins, Danielle Parkins, Emily Thain, Joelle Waldner Kuyek and Maria Bonciu were also recommended to attend as Merited Participants.
Next year Alexander said she hopes to see the festival grow even further. While this year they had more entries than last year, before the COVID-19 pandemic she recalls them getting close to 400 entries.
“We’re recovering. Piano was up this year, vocal was down, instrumental was up because we haven’t had that many soloists for a long time,” Alexander said. “People who move to this area do not know how much talent and opportunity for artistic development there is in this town.”
Speech arts, for example, is a category that rarely gets entries outside of Alexander and a friend who perform reader’s theatre together every year. Alexander would love to see more people participating in this category.
“You can do this stuff from very young to very old, there’s nothing stopping you, and you can enjoy it and have a lot of fun and entertain people,” Alexander said. “We also always need more volunteers and people involved with helping out.”
Alexander noted that putting on the festival is a year-long process and a dozen or so people help her organize it. She encourages anyone interested in either performing or volunteering for next year’s festival to check out 100milefestivalofthearts.ca for more information.